


give me sympathy (i need it, dear; i need your pity)

by caryophyllaceae (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, I promise you, Lowercase, M/M, Run-On Sentences, So much angst, Talk of Suicide, angst all over the place, angst first though, but it ends so happily that you will cry tears of pure joy, do not read if you are easily triggered, mentioned self harm, triggering content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 00:50:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7486884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/caryophyllaceae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>❝we're so close<br/>to something better left unknown<br/>i can feel it in my bones<br/>gimme sympathy<br/>after all of this is gone❞</p><p>▲▼</p><p>you love john egbert enough that no one else should ever need to love him at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give me sympathy (i need it, dear; i need your pity)

**Author's Note:**

> angst with a HAPPY ENDING is my promise.
> 
> trust me. the ending is going to be so happy that you will cry tears of sheer joy. cross my heart, hope to die.

he’s five feet tall with black hair and blue eyes like the ocean and you love him so much that it hurts. hurts everywhere, in your chest and your lungs and your stomach because he is all you want but you are not what he wants. you hide around the corner while he watches movies with jade and that yellow salamander he keeps calling casey and when he asks, “where’s davesprite?” your heart swells because he wonders where you are, he is looking for you. he does not love you but he wants to know where you are and that means everything and more to you because he may not love you but he does care and that is enough for you.

when he tells jade that he is going to go refill the popcorn you fly to the kitchen and float over the counter like you are doing something important. you hear his shoes squeak when he stops abruptly in the doorway, like he had not been expecting to see you in here. you doubt that he was because you are most often in your room. “oh,” he breathes quietly. you wonder if he is so quiet and breathy because he is the heir of breath. you wonder if it has to do with his aspect or not. maybe he is just quiet. “hello, davesprite. how are you doing today?”

you try to breathe but it is very hard because he takes your breath away. it is never this hard to talk to jade, but maybe that is because she calls you dave and not dave _sprite_ like john does, but you do not mind because technically that is who you are. you are not dave strider, you are davesprite, the cheap knockoff of him. you cost ninety dollars less and you should be flying off the shelves but you are not because no one minds paying to get the real dave strider. no one wants you and you have come to terms with it. “i’m chill,” you respond. john cants his head and smiles at you and your heart soars because you love him more than you should. “how’re you doin’, egbert?”

you curse your accent to hell but then he giggles and you do not think you mind it as much. “i’m pretty good, davesprite! i’m glad that you’re doing good too, i was kind of starting to worry about you. y’know, since you spend so much time in your room and stuff.”

you swallow your heart back into your chest because you are elated. john egbert was worried about you. about you, davesprite, the cheap version of dave strider that no one wants because everyone would prefer the original dave strider and you do not blame them. you kind of wish you were not the knockoff, either, but no one ever said life was fair so this is who you are. you guess you will just have to deal with it until you die at the end of the game because you are a game construct and you were never meant to do anything important. your only job was to be dave’s sprite and you already accomplished that so you no longer matter. “thanks, egbert.”

he smiles at you again. his buckteeth are too big for his mouth but it just makes him that much cuter, makes him steal more pieces of your heart because he is so beautiful. oh, how you wish he would love you. but he will not because you are not dave strider, you are davesprite, and you are not enough for anyone. you have come to terms with that. “any time, davesprite! and hey, you know you’re always invited to watch movies with me and jade. we’d love to have you!”

he leaves and you head back to your room with a smile on your face. today is one of your good days. you are lucky.

▲▼

today is one of your bad days.

you really had not meant to eavesdrop, really, because jade and john’s sibling feelings jams are their time alone together and no one is supposed to bother them. even casey, john’s salamander daughter, is sent somewhere else on the ship because that is their time together, and they do not want to be disturbed by anyone. but you had flown by and heard your name so you had stopped at the doorway. you are hiding around the corner and you feel like a stalker, but you cannot help it. why are they talking about you? you usually are not one of their big topics. “i think he’s really cool and stuff, y’know?” john says. your heart loses its footing and falls. john egbert thinks you are cool. that is what you have wanted since you are ten. “but…”

you hold your breath. buts are never good. buts spell bad things out. “but you love dave, not davesprite. i get it john! i love rose, but if there was a rosesprite i wouldn’t love her as much as i love the real rose. not to say davesprite isn’t real dave, because he is! but i know what you mean, okay? you don’t need to feel bad.”

john breathes a sigh. it sounds like relief. “whew, good. i was starting to feel really, really bad!”

you have heard enough. you float off down the hallway to your bedroom, and shut your door quietly behind yourself even though you want to slam it. you love your john more than you love this john but that does not mean you do not love this john at all. but this john does not love you one bit, so maybe you should just get over it. get over him. you will die with the game, anyway. alpha dave will not, and he and john will live happily ever after together. you should just accept it. you do not matter.

you fall back onto your pile of things that you collected around the ship. most of it is made of john’s things. mostly, they are not things he would notice are missing, aside from his blanket and pillow. jade alchemized him new ones after he complained that they went missing, so it was not that big a deal, anyway. the hole in your chest has soaked through the bandages again and you want to ask john to replace them but you never can because you are a coward, so jade always ends up doing it and when she does she gives you sympathetic looks and you hate it because you do not need sympathy. you are not that pathetic.

but realistically, you are.

▲▼

you stay in your room for five days but you do not sleep. on the fifth day, you fall asleep in the evening. you think it is the evening, at least. that is what time you sense it is, but you are on a ship that is traveling through space and time so it does not really matter. when you wake up you are sprawled flat on a beach which you think is weird because you have never dreamed up a beach before. you are not surprised though, because one of your dreams has always been to go to a beach but bro would never let you.

you look down and notice that you have legs again, and that you are not orange. you have on a white suit and you think it might have been the last thing you wore before you were turned into a sprite but you cannot remember any longer. you rise from the ground and dust yourself off, looking around. the beach you are on is beautiful, with crystal clear water, nice sand, and palm trees. your only question is: why are you here? it must be a dreambubble, but dreambubbles do not send people places for no reason. dreambubbles are not random. unlike dreams, they always do things for a reason.

and then, you hear your reason.

“dave?”

you turn though you are not used to being called dave because the only one who calls you dave anymore is jade. standing at the other end of the beach is a version of john. this one is still in his wise guy slime suit and half of it is the color of charcoal, like it was burned in a fire. his eyes are both white and one half of his face is pink, like it was burned, too. he is still wearing his glasses. you do not remember what timeline he is from, but what you do know for certain is that he is running at you full speed, likely with the intent of hugging you.

he tackles you and you both fall to the ground. his arms are tight like a vice around your neck and he is sobbing into your shoulder, and you are not good at comforting people so you rub his back awkwardly. “dave, it’s you.” he says between tears, and then he lifts his head to look at you and you raise an eyebrow, silently asking for an explanation. “oh! oh, do you not remember? dave, it’s me! your john! the one that was burned by his denzien? so you could travel in time and stuff? that’s me, i’m that john. i’m _yours_.”

you have no thoughts other than: holy shit. you are at a loss for words which is not normal because you are dave strider, but not really, and you always have things to say. but in this moment you do not, so instead of talking you tug john forward by the half of his coat that is not burned and meld your lips together. he pulls back first with a goofy grin on his face and you do your best not to smile back, but fail miserably.

“i missed you a lot!” he says excitedly.

you nod your head. “me too, egbert.”

neither of you are very good at talking, apparently. you share no more words but he does lay his head on your chest and keep his arms around your neck, and that is enough for you. he falls asleep after a few minutes and you know because you can hear him snoring, and you give a little chuckle. you know that you will not be here for long because dreambubbles do not last. you also know that you may never find your way back to this john, and it hurts. hurts everywhere, in your chest and your lungs and your stomach because he is all you want and you are all he wants.

you lay on that beach with john egbert, _your_ john egbert, laying on top of you for twenty minutes and fifteen seconds before you wake up in your pile of things. there are dried tears on your cheeks and you wipe them off with the heel of your hands and try to pretend that you are not crying because bro would be angry if he knew that you were. he would tell you that he did not raise a wimp who cries about pointless things like boys.

▲▼

you do not mean to, but you stumble across john’s laptop. for some reason, it is sitting in the middle of the hallway and he is nowhere to be seen. you float down in front of it and tilt your head to the side confusedly when you see that it is full of endless streams of blue text. before you have a chance to read anything the laptop is being snatched away from the ground. standing over you is john egbert himself, and he does not look happy. “davesprite, what’s on my computer is my personal business!” he says angrily. “you’re starting to annoy me, you know! first you disappear into your room for a week and then you start snooping around in my stuff! you are making me so angry!”

“hey!” you hear jade call from the end of the hallway. she comes jogging over to you and john and she puts her hand on john’s shoulder. “don’t be so mean to dave, john. he’s going through a lot of stuff, okay? you have to respect his stuff!”

“i am so fucking _tired_ of dealing with everyone else’s stuff, jade! you don’t even know!” you have never seen john this angry. or broken, for that matter, because he is yelling but his face is full of sadness and regret and it makes something churn inside of you. you think it may be sympathy. you have never felt that before. “stop calling him dave, okay? he isn’t dave! he’s orange and half-bird and he isn’t fucking dave because dave wouldn’t ignore me like he does! he just floats around this ship and pretends like i don’t exist, but i do, i am real and i don’t like being ignored! it’s annoying and i don’t want to play his stupid games anymore!”

jade sighs through her nose and wraps her arms around john. you have never seen their sibling relationship so close up before. they like to keep it to themselves. all you really notice is that jade is about eight inches taller than john. you do not know when she got so tall. “hey, it’s okay, john. i...i’m still going to call him dave because he is dave, john! he might not be alpha dave but he is still dave, just from a different timeline. and his john and bro and jade died and he left his rose behind so you need to be a little more sensitive!”

john screams, and the only word that you can put to it is anguish. “fuck off, jade! my dad died, i’ve watched dave die countless times, i watched rose die and had to kiss her back to life, and you want me to be more sensitive for _him_? i am just so tired of being the friendleader! okay? i’m not strong enough anymore! i just want to die and i _hate_ that feeling but i do, because the clowns have become the voices in my head and they tell me everything true about me, that i’m garbage and that no one cares about me! i’m worthless, okay? i wish i wasn’t immortal so i could just _kill myself already_!”

holy. shit.

you cannot believe how real it just got on this yellow ship. everything is fun and games and shitty movies, and you have never seen or heard it get this heavy before. jade is in a stunned silence, but her arms are still around john and you’re pretty sure she is holding him up now because he is slumped over and you can see him crying. it scares you, because john is the friendleader and you have never seen him cry before. you have heard the sound of your john crying but he hid his face in your shoulder so you could not see the tears drip, but now john egbert is letting his tears flow freely in front of you and the are dripping onto the floor like raindrops.

and then you see john move his arm and everything goes from pretty real to _really fucking real._ john’s entire arm is covered in cuts and because he is so pale, each mark stands out. some are old and some are new and when you see them you are so shocked that all you can do is wave your hand in jade’s face until she is paying attention to you and then you point at john’s arm and she starts crying, too. fuck, you are so at a loss for what you should do right now. jade steps away from john but does not let go of him, and she turns his other arm over so she can look at it and that arm is covered, too.

“fuck,” is the first thing out of jade’s mouth. “fuck, john. fuck. i am the worst sister in all of paradox space, it is me. i am so sorry i didn’t notice this before, i should’ve, i should’ve noticed that you were so drawn into yourself and this is all my fault, isn’t it, it is isn’t it, dave, this is all my fault isn’t it? i’m such a shitty sister.”

“ain’t your fault, harley. could’ve happened to any of us.”

john is absolutely silent and that scares you, too, because john egbert is never silent. john egbert probably could not even be silent at a funeral. “there’s some on my legs too.” he says, almost like he is in a daze. jade pulls his pants down with absolutely no abandon, and you almost admire her for how much she does not give a shit. he has ghostbusters boxers on, which does not surprise you. but you are more focused on the cuts. he had said there were only a few, but that is not the case. his legs are covered from the top of his thigh to his ankle in cuts.

jade has to cover her mouth. you think she does it to stop herself from sobbing. she helps john pull his pants back up and then she pulls him into a hug. you do not know what to do and you are ready to fly away until she motions angrily for you to join the hug. you do.

john egbert breaks to pieces in your and jade harley’s arms.

▲▼

on the final day of year three, john tries to convince jade to alchemize him a long sleeve shirt. she tells him that she will not and instead alchemizes him shorts and a short sleeve shirt, and then she proceeds to stand angrily in his bedroom door until he puts them on. he tries to keep his god tier clothes with him but jade takes them away. “the cuts are all healed up, anyway. they’re just scars now. trust me when i say that no one is going to care about them.”

“but…” john starts. “i look...dumb. i look dumb with all of these scars in the open like this.”

jade proceeds to smack him right in the face. she does not do it very hard and you can tell it did not hurt, so you snort a laugh. john glares at you menacingly. “you do not look dumb, do you hear me, you horse’s ass? you look like someone who wasn’t strong enough to hold himself up but was pretending that he was. you look like a hero who has suffered through a lot of tough stuff. our friends are going to think that you are the strongest friendleader ever. if they don’t think that, then i will personally deliver them a beating. alright?”

john cracks a smile. you have never been more relieved to see someone smile in your life. “ugh, okay, fine.” he says, but his smile completely betrays that he is angry at all about that.

▲▼

when you get near the meteor, jade has john use his windy powers to fly her down to it, and you fly beside her. both other sprites, as well as casey, follow suit. only, casey is in john’s arms, and he is holding onto her for dear life. once your little posse touches down on the meteor, the real dave strider is strolling over to john, but you know him because you are him and he is likely so happy that it is bursting at the seams inside. john meets him halfway and flies into his arms. you almost have to coo at the sight. you do not think you love this john egbert any longer.

“dave, i missed you dude!” he shouts, and before he can spew anything else their mouths are together and no one on the meteor really seems to be shocked but you cannot say you really are, either. dave breaks the kiss first and john is blushing. “uh. yep. missed you.”

dave smirks. you say that it is a smirk because he would want you to, but it is actually a fond smile because he is in love with john egbert. you understand the feeling. “me too, bro. hey, why are you wearing shorts and a te-holy shit, are those cutting scars? john, what.”

dave is still holding john in his arms because he is a whole foot taller than him, but he sets john down on the ground and crosses his arms. you know that he is waiting for an explanation. john scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, but jade flies in to save the day. like the good - no, great - sister that she is. “those are cutting scars! they’re there to show that john wasn’t strong enough to hold himself up but pretended that he was until he finally broke and let dave and i take care of him. they’re his battle scars!”

john is smiling. he is also as red as a tomato. “nice, harley. nice. glad you’re doin’ better, egbert."

john nods at dave. it is a universal sign of strider love. you taught him that. you guess that when you said it it was not a complete lie because dave nods back with a smile on his face. then he holds his hand out and john grabs it. they start walking to the glowing door. the trolls are watching in awe, but they soon catch on and start walking along with them. “oh, wait!” john calls loudly, and then he is breaking his hand away from dave’s and jogging over to you.

he wraps his arms around you, careful of your bandages, and pulls you close. he buries his face in your feathers. “i love you, too, davesprite.”

your chest hurts. perhaps you did not stop loving this john egbert. you are pretty sure by now that you just love every john egbert that comes along. he breaks away from you and gives that dopey smile, then he runs back and grabs dave’s hand. they step out of the game, and you try to smile as a white light blinds you.

▲▼

you expect that you had died with the game, but instead you wake up on that same beach where you had seen your john before. you are not a sprite anymore. you are also terribly confused, until you notice that your john is sitting next to you with a wide grin on his face. “welcome to the afterlife, davesprite. i missed you! oh, and i love you.”

you do not think you are going to mind spending the rest of your afterlife with john egbert.

**Author's Note:**

> this was just supposed to be something short based on the song "gimme sympathy" by metric. on that note, the lyrics in the description are from "gimme sympathy" by metric. give it a listen, it's a really good song.
> 
> hope someone read and liked this!
> 
> thank you for reading even if you didn't. :)
> 
> \+ might have a second chapter of post-sburb stuff? would anyone be interested in that?
> 
> also, i totally relate to john in the respect of trying to hold himself up even though he wasn't strong enough to. that is me as fuck. (i did it for eight years).


End file.
